CARNAVAL AUSTIN

Texas, and all its iconic splendor, will be the focus of 2016‘s Carnaval Brasileiro, one of Austin’s longest running and most spectacular annual traditions. Lauded as the largest indoor Brazilian Mardi Gras celebration anywhere on the globe, Carnaval is gearing up for its 39th year, set to leave the chute at 8:00 p.m., Saturday, February 27, 2016 at Austin’s Palmer Events Center, 900 Barton Springs Road. 

An epic evening with the infectiously danceable pulse of samba drums, an endless parade of exotic costumes, and the uninhibited euphoria of over 6,000 attendees have established this Brazilian style festival as one of the most anticipated fêtes on area calendars.  

The heart and soul of this festivity are to be found in the authentic, fiery Brazilian carnaval music provided by two high energy bands.   

Austin’s Susanna Sharpe and Samba Police will be returning a?er a victorious return to the stage in 2015. Veterans of fourteen previous Carnaval performances, the band will offer a varied palette of traditional Brazilian Carnaval rhythms ranging from the obvious focus of Rio-style sambas and marches, to the more boiling music of Brazil’s Northeast, frevos and samba-reggae.  

Austin’s own traditional Rio-style escola de samba (samba school), Austin Samba, a locally based group of 60 drummers and 60 dancers, all bedecked in elaborate unifying costumes, will be making their twelfth Carnaval presentation. Their dynamic performances in the middle of the dance floor electrify the celebration with an authentic taste of Rio, modeled on that city’s legendary escolas de samba that often comprise 600 drummers and thousands of dancers in Rio’s annual Carnaval parades. For 2016, Austin Samba’s costume theme revolves around the great state of Texas, so expect drummers and dancers decked out in cowboy attire, and some spectacular surprises. Don’t be shocked if a live horse appears on the dance floor!